Security Cameras that can tell if you're fighting

The creation of a new CCTV camera (Kintense), with a built in monitoring system designed to detect aggressive behaviour was presented at the SenSys conference in Rome, Italy, earlier this month.

The skeletal recognition tech behind Kinect is useful for more than just gaming used with Microsoft's gaming sensor. Kintense, a system designed by Shahriar Nirjon and colleagues at the University of Virginia, uses Kinect's skeletal tracking and an algorithm with an eye for punches and kicks to tell if the people on camera are in the middle of a scuffle. Unlike Kinect, Kintense doesn't require people to be facing the camera. In trials, some actions like kicking were recognized with 90 per cent accuracy, but other movements, such as punching and throwing, proved more difficult to spot.

The system was designed by Shahriar Nirjon and colleagues at the University of Virginia. It was designed to specifically warn medical staff if a patient was acting violently – but it could also be used in security cameras. The use of vision and acoustic sensors, originally developed for games are now a powerful paradigm for many different kinds of applications, including health," says team member Jack Stankovic.

So far, the system is particularly good at detecting kicks, but is getting better at spotting more "subtle" moves like face-punches and body-slams. Of course none of this is going to prevent alleyway fight club action, but it could make it easier to spot, even if security cam operators are asleep on the job. Currently scathing verbal attacks are still undetectable by the device; however, they plan to upgrade the system so it can recognize verbal aggression.